Consequent of Your Existence
by zooeyglassed
Summary: Because growing up is scary when everything you know and everything you're good at and everything you treasure is tied to this very moment.
1. Chapter 1

Sirius had lost count of the number of times he had snuck onto the top of the astronomy tower in the last week alone. There was something comforting about being directly exposed to the late-night breeze that so strictly contrasted the thick summer air that had descended upon Hogwarts in the last month.

And then, of course, there was the Other Thing, the one that had caused a sort of suffocation to impress onto his existence that had nothing to do with the summer heat.

Images flashed across his mind before he had even slightly brushed upon the thought. For that was all that remained with him of that night, just images, as all the rationality, the excuses, the pity had left him. Peter's face of pure horror. James' face of utter disbelief. Remus' face –

Remus.

Remus' face in the Hospital Wing the next morning that was devoid of all the promised anger, frustration and hatred.

Remus' face, which had held only disappointment.

All of a sudden, Sirius felt a certain anger descend upon him. Because he could have handled an angry Remus. He would have welcomed it, in fact. He yearned to hear those words out loud, the ones that declared that he was nothing more than a Black. The ones that declared that all his acts of nobility and loyalty and friendship were exactly that – an act. He could handle that. He could handle being a worthless, lost cause – he had enough experience handling it already, thanks to his family.

But, God, he couldn't handle a disappointed Remus. Disappointment meant that something had actually been expected of him. Disappointment meant that they had thought of him as more than what he was. Disappointment meant that Remus had actually thought that he could be saved.

Sirius sighed, lighting up his fifth cigarette of the day. Things weren't as bad as they could have been, he supposed.

James hadn't held it against him. He'd been furious, of course he had, being as noble and righteous as he was despite also being slightly reckless. But he knew Sirius too well. He understood the inner workings of his mind in a way that only soulmates could, and he was able to work out every way in which Sirius had rationalised what he had done at the time. If one could actually call that rationalisation, that is. Mostly it was just a jumble of ideas that seemed to fit together and make sense in his head. So after a punch given in a moment of heated anger, James had managed to get passed it. He still wasn't okay with it, of course, but understanding Sirius, he also understood exactly how sorry Sirius was.

Peter had been terrified, but too terrified of losing his friendship with Sirius to actually do anything about it. He followed James' lead just as always, slightly desperate because he knew that if he let this break them all apart he himself would be left with nothing.

Remus. Remus had forgiven him too soon, smiling in that way he smiled when someone made an anti-werewolf joke in class and expected everyone to laugh. But that wasn't what bothered him most. It was the wall, the Moony Wall, as he called it in his head. The wall that Remus had up against everyone but the Marauders, the only people in the world with whom he could even come close to being himself and letting himself loose. But now the Moony Wall was up again, and they were no longer special. Sirius was no longer special. Because Sirius had let him down. Sirius had destroyed the only trust that Remus had ever allowed himself to have.

* * *

><p>When Remus awoke on the final day of their fifth year, the dormitory was quiet with a silent sunlight slowly descending upon the sleeping figures. Remus hated waking up early but he absolutely treasured being awake early in the day. A certain peacefulness came from being the only one awake, like the sounds of the early morning were whispering secrets that were just for his ears. He began to climb out of bed when he noticed that Sirius' bed next to his was empty.<p>

He remembered that Sirius hadn't come back to the room when he went to bed last night, and waking to his absence wasn't exactly a rare occurrence, especially in the last few weeks. But he worried nonetheless because a Sirius seeking isolation was a Sirius getting way too much inside his own head, and that Sirius was one that was lethal, to himself more than to anyone else.

Remus shook his head and made his way to the bathroom. He shouldn't be worrying about Sirius. He shouldn't have to worry about Sirius. He shouldn't even spare Sirius a thought.

And yet he couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief as he heard Sirius enter and begin to haphazardly collect his belongings, a mere two hours before they were due to depart.

* * *

><p>Remus was absent-mindedly making his way towards the Hogwarts Express when he heard someone call his name.<p>

'Remus. Do you think we could, uh, talk for a minute?'

Remus sighed. He'd been avoiding a confrontation from Sirius all day, mostly because he didn't want something hanging over his head throughout the entire summer. He was used to arguing with Sirius (they might actually argue a bit too much for their own good), but it never lasted long since they both could somehow never stay mad at one another. But things were different now. Everything was different.

Remus sighed again. 'I suppose, yeah.' They walked towards an empty corner of the platform.

Sirius began. 'Listen, Remus – Moony I – I'm sorry. You know I am. I just – I need things to get back to the way they were. I need you – I need us to be okay again. I can't live like this anymore.'

Remus raised an eyebrow. It was just like Sirius to make this about him, to turn this around so that his feelings were disregarded and once again Sirius was the centre of all attention. Something exploded within Remus as he spoke his next words. 'I don't believe you. I genuinely, actually don't believe you, Sirius. How dare you – how could you even have the _nerve_ to suggest that this is about you? About your feelings? It may slip your mind occasionally Black but, privileged as you are, the world does not revolve around you.' His voice rose with every word so that he was now almost shouting, a rarity for Remus. 'This is about _me_, this is about me almost having to live with the guilt of murder because of you!'

Sirius was struck dumb for a few moments as Remus continued to glare at him. This was the first time Remus had verbally expressed any negative emotion towards him since the Incident. Up until now, it had always been a silent disappointment. It felt like a slap across his face, except it hurt a hell of a lot more than that. 'I – you –,' Sirius couldn't get out the right words. His voice turned icy and devoid of all emotion as he said, 'Well, _Lupin_, maybe if you let your wall down every once in a goddamn while you would realise that this destroying me has quite a lot to do with the fact that it's destroying you.'

Remus watched him walk away.


	2. Chapter 2

For Sirius Black, the month of June comprised almost entirely of his bedroom ceiling, which he stared at for hours as he lay on his bed day after day. The Black household had a certain darkness to it, a gloomy aura that would have imposed itself upon anyone regardless of their feelings towards its inhabitants.

If those feelings were anything short of satisfactory, it was a hell of a lot worse.

Walburga Black was abusive in a manner than even physical violence couldn't compare to. Throughout Sirius' childhood, it consisted mostly of talking down to him with an air of superiority, casually listing all his flaws and all his failures. That was probably the worst bit of it, the nonchalance of the way she said those things – like they weren't insults but mere remarks about his character, like his entire character was an insult upon them all. These days, though, barely any words were exchanged at all; all she had to do was look at Sirius in a certain way and he would automatically be convinced of his worthlessness.

Sirius walked the halls of the house like a bomb looking for an excuse to go off. Lack of contact over the past few weeks had put him even more on edge than usual. He had been hoping to avoid Grimmauld Place almost entirely this summer, but the Potters had been off vacationing in India for the first two weeks, and now that they were back he was far too stubborn to open any of James' letters. Remus hadn't written.

Avoiding all the French lessons and Piano classes his mother imposed on them every summer no longer had any effect. His family no longer treated him like a nuisance but like a shadow, barely worthy of attention. He should have been satisfied with this, but he was Sirius Black and he demanded the dignity of having the last word.

His trigger presented itself at dinner one evening.

Dinner at the Black household was what would be expected from any Pureblood inhabitancy – lavish to the degree that the glamour almost seemed forced, with the oldest silver, the finest wine and the greatest food at every meal. Sirius made a point of contrasting it as starkly as he could, often dressed in pyjamas and eating with his hands as he chewed loudly with his mouth open.

'…honestly have no idea what the _Prophet_ is turning into, printing pro-werewolf conspiracies…' Sirius' ears shot up and out of the voices within his own head.

'Right you are, dear. Next thing we know, they'll be saying squibs should be allowed into Hogwarts!' Sirius clenched his fork tightly, glaring at his food.

'Please, Walburga, you say that like it would be a bigger atrocity than letting in mudbloods – '. Sirius had loudly dropped his glass to the floor. Silence descended upon the table.

'Something the matter?' sneered Walburga for she, too, was a Black and would gladly jump up at the chance of a fight.

'Sorry, mother dear, for you caught me by surprise. I was shocked, you see, that you would consider a mudblood to be beneath you when you are the spitting image of a pig's behind.'

The world ended.

'WHO DO YOU EVEN THINK YOU ARE, STRUTTING ABOUT THE PLACE LIKE YOU'RE BETTER THAN THE REST OF US'

'I'M A DAMN SIGHT BETTER THAN THE LOT OF YOU!'

'A DISGRACE TO THE NAME OF BLACK'

'THE NAME OF BLACK DOESN'T LIVE UP TO MUCH AS IT IS'

'A DISAPPOINTMENT SINCE THE DAY YOU WERE BORN'

'AND THAT WOULD BE MY PROUDEST ACHIEVEMENT!'

And so it went on, the same arguments thrown across the table a million times but somehow they still stung just as much. Sirius and his bags were out of the house within the hour.

* * *

><p>Remus awoke to a letter from James on the last day of June.<p>

_Moony – _

_Padfoot is here. Showed up with his bags on my doorstep last night. We all knew it was just a matter of time. Hasn't stopped laughing since he arrived, says it's the best decision of his life. But, well, you know him. Looks like he'll burst into tears at any given moment. _

_Look, mate, I know you lot are at odds but he's completely on edge and I can't fucking handle the sight of him like this – you know how to handle him better than anyone. _

_Try and get here soon. _

_- P. _

Remus hated himself, then, for how much he worried about Sirius. For how much he was always worrying about him. He hated that, after everything, he was still able to leave the house without a second thought. He hated how goddamn difficult it was to hate him.

* * *

><p>James had suspiciously disappeared when Remus entered his room to find Sirius flipping through the latest issue of <em>Quidditch Weekly<em>. His expression made it clear that he had not been informed of Remus' arrival.

'If James does not stop treating me like a fucking mental health patient I swear to fucking God – '

'Sirius.' He fell silent in a way that only Remus could make him. 'You should, you know, talk about it. If you want to.'

He got off the bed, exasperated, and started pacing across the room. Remus hated seeing him like this, pulling at his hair as though he were desperate for something he couldn't quite recognise. 'What the fuck makes anyone think I want us all to sit in a circle and cry about my feelings? Let's call Pete along too, why don't we, make a whole event out of pitying Sirius Black – '

'Hey. Just listen to me for a minute.' There was a tone of pleading in his voice that Sirius just couldn't ignore, because it shone out like a missing puzzle piece that he's been searching for for _such _a long time. Because for weeks now Remus' voice had held nothing but disappointment for him. He just couldn't help but listen.

'You're not them. I promise you that, Sirius Black, you're not them. Even after – after everything, I never – I could _never _see you as one of them. You're brave and you're loyal and you get far too angry about things far too easily but they're the right sort of things to get angry about and – and you'll always be those things, no matter what they think. They don't deserve you.' Remus felt a certain guilt lift off of his chest as he said those things, almost as though by remaining silent he had been holding Sirius' worst insecurities against him. He couldn't help but feel a wave of relief wash over him as Sirius' face very visibly relaxed in front of him.

But Sirius Black was nothing if not spontaneous and unpredictable, and within the next second Remus saw something so passionate in his eyes that it could almost be hatred.

'You – you – fucking hell, Remus, this is just like you! Why do you have to be so – so _insufferable_? I almost destroyed your entire life and _you're _consoling _me_?' Sirius was still pacing and looked like he was ready to fling the nearest items across the room. 'Why do you have to be so goddamn perfect?' his voice broke at the last word, almost as though it physically pained him to see Remus like that.

'Yeah, well, sorry for the inconvenience but the perfection is sort of embedded in my nature!'

It was just like the two of them, arguing to the point of insanity, throwing across words and expressions and emotions that could simultaneously manage to be hurtful and prove just how remarkable the other person was. Because right then, for the very first time in what felt like an age, Remus smiled a smile that told him everything was going to be okay.


	3. Chapter 3

'But Heathcliff was in _love_, he couldn't just let those who destroyed their relationship get away!'

'God, Prongs, you're such a sap. You can't just excuse an abusive relationship just because some bloke was creepily obsessed with some chick who wouldn't sleep with him!'

Two weeks remained until the beginning of their sixth year, but as the full moon fell in the final week of the summer holidays, the marauders had agreed on spending the week preceding it camped out at the Potter household.

Remus Lupin was a man who would get lost in his obsessions in a way that could somehow manage to be incredibly nonchalant and extremely passionate at the same time. This was quite unlike Sirius, who would jump headfirst into whatever caught his fancy and think about nothing else for about 2 weeks before boredom would allow him to move onto something else. James was once again different in that, once he found his obsession, he would simply _not shut up _about it ('FUCKING HELL PRONGS IT'S THREE IN THE MORNING I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE CHUDLEY CANNON'S POSITION IN THE LEAGUE TABLES JUST GO TO SLEEP). Peter, on the other hand, would usually be too paranoid of disapproval to actually share his interests (though his passion for food would go unnoticed by no one).

But Remus Lupin was different because once something caught his attention, it would stay with him forever, becoming a part of his personality and growing and changing to accommodate the passage of time so that a bit of it shone out of him for the rest of his life.

Last summer, Remus had gone through a gothic romanticism phase and had eventually forced the rest of the marauders into reading _Wuthering Heights, _which they all had liked a hell of a lot more than they would ever admit because 'it doesn't fit with the punk rock image, moony!' (James, of course, would disagree because spirits from beyond the grave are actually very, very punk rock).

This particular summer evening found the four boys in a circle at the foot of James' bed, a bottle of firewhisky passing amongst them as they argued over the morality of the character that is Heathcliff.

'Sorry, mate, but I'm going to have to side with Pads here, ' said Remus. 'Besides, Bronte's entire mission was to use the reader's pity for him as a distraction from his cruelty and masochism'.

This was Sirius' favourite version of Remus - slightly pretentious without meaning to be as pure passion filled his eyes while he blabbered on about things most people wouldn't even think about. These were the moments when those parts of Remus, the parts that he had built himself up from, shone out with little self-control (though, admittedly, the alcohol probably helped with that). These were the moments when Sirius couldn't help but think of just how fucking beautiful Remus looks when he talks about what he loves.

Remus caught Sirius' eye for a second before he hastily looked away.

'What about Mr. Darcy, then?' Peter asked.

'I would fuck Darcy in a heartbeat,' sighed Sirius, dramatically letting his head fall into James' lap.

'But he isn't your perfect hero either, being so full of privilege that anything beneath his standards was pretty much sin.'

Sirius answered in a voice that sounded genuinely, almost childishly hurt. 'Yeah, but he was still a _good person_! He was able to look past all that and do the right thing!'

'I have an idea!' declared James brightly. 'If you could fuck one muggle literary male figure, who would it be?'

'Excuse me, Moony, but could you possibly remind me of when we all transformed into a bunch of women? I don't seem to recall the transaction.'

'Oy, you're the one going on and on about fucking Darcy!'

'Well you must admit, Prongs, he is very fuckable.'

'That he is.'

'Alrght then,' said Sirius, pulling himself off of James' lap and taking another swig of firewhisky. 'You first, Pete.'

'If you're Darcy then I'm all for Bingley – much less high maintenance.'

'Prongsie?'

'Dorian Gray is sexy as fuck.'

'And, you know, a serial killer,' added Remus.

'Minor detail.'

'What about you then, Moony? And if you say Atticus Finch I might punch you.'

'I'll have you know that Atticus Finch is one of the greatest literary figures of all time.'

'Remus please tell me you're not going to fuck a boring librarian.'

'For your information, Padfoot, he was a lawyer. The title of boring librarian belongs to myself alone.'

'Stop changing the subject.'

'I'm surrounded by a bunch of imbeciles.'

'Still changing the subject.'

'Fine, _fine_. Zooey Glass from Franny and Zooey.'

They all blinked at him, waiting for elaboration.

'Modern lit, probably why you fancy purebloods haven't heard of him. He's this character who attempts to learn about the world in order to do the right thing but then that knowledge ends up destroying the world for him so he just pretends to be an asshole and uses sarcasm to hide his vulnerability but really he questions every inch of his own morality and – ' Remus stopped midsentence, blushing furiously for reasons inexplicable to the rest of the marauders.


	4. Chapter 4

Marking the arrival of September was rain, a constant downpour for days on end bringing a cloud of darkness in its wake.

Sirius appreciated it simply for the white noise that would settle into the background of every moment, as he constantly felt that the world was far too quiet compared to all the madness going on inside his own head.

Remus loved the rain solely because it provided him with an excuse to walk around in oversized sweaters and consume unhealthy amounts of hot chocolate.

By the third week of September, however, Sirius had bloody had enough.

'I have bloodly had enough,' said Sirius.

The four boys had just entered the Great Hall for breakfast to be welcomed by yet another set of dark clouds decorating the ceiling. They made their way towards the corner of the Gryffindor table that by some unspoken principle was always reserved for them, joining Marlene McKinnon and Mary Macdonald.

'Did you hear?' asked Mary as they approached. 'Slughorn's first party of the year is this Friday. Going to be pretty big, too, some sort of dance or something.' Mary Macdonald was the sort of person who'd always seem to be on top of everything. Not only was she ridiculously popular due to a certain charm she inflicted upon the entire student body, but she also without fail managed to attend every single social event of the year while still somehow having a perfect set of grades. What was intriguing about her, though, was that she was miraculously able to accomplish all that without coming off as annoying even in the slightest – you just couldn't hate her for her perfection, regardless of how much you envied it.

'I expect you and Padfoot should be getting your invitations soon,' said Peter to James.

As the conversation went on, Sirius watched Remus pile breakfast onto his plate, looking absolutely ridiculous wearing a maroon sweater three sizes too big for him under his robes ('don't give me that look Pads it's sodding cold and my lankiness isn't helping okay!'). Sirius couldn't help but grin as Remus carefully spread a precisely even layer of marmalade over his toast, taking excruciatingly long to even it out on the edges. He then went on to add exactly three spoonfuls of sugar into his tea, carefully brushing off the extra grains with his finger.

It never failed to amaze Sirius, how Remus could somehow always be such an influencing presence while simultaneously being so absorbed in his own world. Looking at him, it seemed like nothing would bring him greater pleasure than to prepare a perfect breakfast for himself, and Sirius admired him for that. Because he was Remus Lupin, a werewolf who went through excruciating pains every month, a boy with not nearly enough money to live off of, and yet he still managed to take pleasure in the little things that most people often overlook. There was an element of irony in it, because someone that most people would consider to be a monster was actually the most humane person Sirius knew, and it somehow made him believe that if Remus could escape his lycanthropy and be more than that, then perhaps he could escape his family name too.

The sound of James clearing his throat suddenly brought him back to reality. 'Oy, earth to Black, have you been listening to me? I've only been calling your name for the past five minutes.'

'What can I say mate it's probably the inbreeding,' said Sirius with a grin as Mary and Peter laughed. Marlene raised an eyebrow in his direction.

'_Anyway_,' continued James, 'as I was just saying to Pete, Slughorn's party might just be the perfect place to try out the thing.'

'The thing?'

'The thing.'

'Alright alright we can take a hint,' said Marlene, grabbing the last of her toast and walking off with Mary. 'Just keep it hygienic this time, alright?'

'You blow up _one _toilet and suddenly the whole world questions your sanitation strategies,' muttered James.

* * *

><p>'Goddamnit Sirius, I'm <em>not <em>going to finish up the potion!' The hours directly preceding a prank were always like this – chaotic, filled with a frenzy of yelling and confusion. Not that they would ever admit it, of course. They had an image of nonchalance to protect, after all. But never, in Remus' entire career of marauder-ing, had things actually gone according to plan. Sure, it was all _fine_ in the end and appropriate levels of destruction would be achieved, but in the hour before all that Remus would genuinely fear for his life.

Sirius sighed dramatically and lay his hand on Remus' shoulder, looking him straight in the eye as he said, 'Moony. I believe in you. I trust that you can do this. Truly, on my life I – '

'What the fuck Padfoot you know just as well as I do that all I could possibly do is blow it up!' Remus wasn't quite able to bite back a laugh so that the statement didn't exactly express the required level of annoyance.

'Ugh, fine, fine! Me and Wormy'll finish up the cooling stage of the potion and sneak it into the kitchens. In the meantime, perhaps you could take your incompetency to Prongs and try to not sabotage the spell activation.'

'Jerk.'

'Wanker.'

'Don't die.'

'Don't mean to!' The two walked off in opposite directions.

Contrary to Sirius' statement, Remus was actually quite good at the spellwork involved in this particular prank. He had designed it, after all, tweaking a bunch of charms together to create the tracking spell for the map. But it still had a few glitches they hadn't been able to figure out (like how all the Hufflepuffs disappeared from the map entirely every single day at precisely 7:03 pm), and today was the best opportunity to try it out on a real setting.

Slughorn's party had started about 30 minutes ago, but he and James were still two of the very few people who had already arrived, along with Lily Evans and Dorcas Meadows.

Slughorn's party had become such a big event that they had shifted it into the Great Hall, with the house tables cornered away to make space for the dance floor. Pretty much every student above fourth year had been invited, and there had been rumours that this was Slughorn's last year before his retirement.

Remus went along to join James, who sat in a corner with Frank Longbottom and Kingsley Shacklebot. Not that James was actually initiating any conversation with either of them, of course, because Lily Evans was in the room and his mind seemed to be a bit preoccupied.

An hour passed until the party was in full swing, Sirius and Peter being the last to arrive.

'What took you so long?' Remus hissed.

'House elves were proving a bit… difficult,' answered Peter. 'But anyway, Phase One complete.'

Before anyone could say any more, Sirius was already on the dance floor, somehow having managed to have dragged an incredibly flustered McGonagall along with him.

Remus couldn't help but smile fondly as he watched him make a completely fool of himself and yet somehow still manage to maintain an air of dignity. It was sort of remarkable, really, how short Sirius' attention span was, how quickly his mind could shift from one think to the next like badly chopped sentences merged together to create his mind. What was perhaps even more remarkable, though, was that Sirius managed to get bored of pretty much everything except the four of them together. Remus had never met someone like that, someone who committed either so wholeheartedly that it was almost scary or not at all.

The consumption of dinner marked the end of Phase Two, so that now all they had to do was wait for the right moment.

'Now,' whispered James a while later, when pretty much every person in the room was gathered on the dance floor. 'Now, Remus.' They cast the spell together.

The effect is almost instantaneous. The dark clouds lining the ceiling descend and split up so that a fragment of a cloud floats above every person in the room, bringing in the never-ending rain pouring outside. It's more than that, though, because the effect of the tracking spell means that each person is faced with a unique force of nature. A lot of the Slytherins get hit with hard hailstones (along with a few Ravenclaws), then there are Ravenclaws upon which it is snowing, Hufflepuffs being tacked with dew, and Gryffindors quite suspiciously dealing with not much more than a light summer rain.

Remus saw Sirius grinning at him from across the room, shaking water out of his hair and somehow still managing to look completely put-together. Remus grinned back until he saw Marlene McKinnon drag him away and out of the Great Hall. For reasons unknown to him, Remus' stomach gave a reflective lurch as he watched them walk away.

* * *

><p>'Look Marlene I like you and all but snogging in a broom cupboard isn't exactly my idea of – '<p>

'Oh for fuck's sake Black the entire school knows I'm a lesbian!'

Sirius thought that if a female version of himself were ever to exist, it would be Marlene. She had always been just as reckless, just as instinctive as him. They even looked similar, he thought, with a same sort of manner of talking and walking. One major difference, though, was that Marlene was a hell of a lot more perceptive (and a hell of a lot cooler but Sirius would never admit that).

'Right. Of course. So you've dragged me out of celebrating my brilliant success with my friends for conversation?'

'Please don't try to be clever. I dragged you out because watching you drooling over Lupin was just agonising and I couldn't handle it anymore!'

'Uh – I'm sorry what?'

'Really, Black? A blind person would be able to see how messed up you are over him.'

'Marlene I love you but I have absolutely no idea what you're saying.'

She threw her hands up in frustration. 'You and Remus! You could cut the sexual frustration with a knife! You can't stop staring at each other for more than two minutes! I've never seen two people completely mad over each other! Do you – are you honestly saying you didn't know?'

Sirius actually laughed out loud for two whole minutes. 'God, Mar, as much as I would _love _to be a part of your Gay Agenda or whatever – I do not like Remus. He's my mate.'

To his surprise, Marlene just smirked at him. 'Alright. Fine. Let's just say, once all this is over – you'll owe me a little something.'

She turned and walked away, her heels clicking on the wooden floor as Sirius tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.


	5. Chapter 5

Sirius Black had not been thinking about what Marlene had said at Slughorn's party.

He hadn't thought about it afterwards in the common room, as a slightly drunk Remus Lupin attempted to brush substantial amounts of snow out of his hair.

He hadn't thought about it on Halloween last week, when Remus had walked around the Great Hall in a wolf costume.

He hadn't even thought about it during the last full moon, when Remus had casually said 'I might marry you' upon being greeted with chocolate bars in the Hospital Wing the next morning.

He hadn't thought about it _so much_, in fact, that this particular November morning found an incredibly flustered looking Remus Lupin dragging an equally confused Sirius Black into an empty classroom after breakfast.

Remus began pacing back and forth in front of him, tugging at his hair before Sirius had even had time to catch his breath.

'Look if I've done something wrong just tell me, okay?'

'I – what?'

He continued pacing, rambling on and saying words that didn't seem to make much sense to Sirius. 'Look I get that being friends with a werewolf can be, I don't know, overwhelming or something but we were just starting to get back to normal and I thought it was all going okay but if there's something going on that I don't know about, if there's something I've done just – '

'Remus – Moony for God's sake stop pacing you're making my head hurt. I might be a bit amped up on coffee but I honestly have no idea what you're saying, mate.'

'But – you've been avoiding me. You've barely looked at me straight for weeks, Padfoot. Is everything – are you okay?'

Sirius hoped that his hair was long enough to cover the blush he felt rising up on his face. The truth of the matter was that he hadn't been able to look at Remus long enough without his stomach doing some fantastic somersaults in succession that made him want to throw up.

The very first time that happened, Sirius had genuinely considered getting himself checked at the Hospital Wing because this sort of thing just wasn't supposed to happen to him – he never got nervous over anything, ever.

Remus continued watching him with so much genuine concern etched on his face that it made Sirius want to sink to the ground and implode.

'Hey, don't worry about it, alright?' Sirius sighed. 'I just – I've been worried about what's going to happen once the year's over. You know, now that I'm disowned at all.'

Remus' expression instantly transformed from one of concern to anger. 'It's just not fair that you have to be worrying about these things. You're barely sixteen, for God's sake, and they've literally thrown you out of their house – '

Something of the wolf always shone in Remus' face when he got too worked up over something. Sirius often suspected that one of the reasons Remus kept so calm and collected all the time was because he was afraid of taking his emotions too far and letting something escape. But Sirius loved seeing it, loved seeing little flashes of something that was paradoxically so different from Remus and yet so much a part of him.

Remus cleared his throat and only then did Sirius realise that he'd been staring at him. 'Wow, Pads, you really are preoccupied with the thoughts in your own head. Never thought that day would come.'

Sirius let out a laugh. 'You underestimate me. Of course I have Things to Think About. How do you think I come up with those brilliant plans that have given you your entire reputation at this school?'

'And what a reputation that is to have.'

They began making their way towards Potions, and Sirius was most definitely Not Thinking about how relieved Remus looked at having things back to normal.

* * *

><p>'It's official. I have the punk.'<p>

Remus looked up from behind his book, using every bit of self-control to refrain from rolling his eyes. 'Punk is not something you _have_, Sirius, it's something you _are_.'

'It's official. I am the punk.'

Remus groaned, giving up and falling back on his bed as he tried not to look amused.

Sirius stood at the front of the dormitory, posing in his brand new leather jacket as Peter watched in awe and James cheered him on. Remus had to admit that it did quite suit him.

'I don't know, mate,' said James. 'The boys in all those magazines always have that black stuff under their eyes.'

'What do you reckon, Moony? You're the muggle expert. Do I need that black stuff to become the punk?'

Remus' mouth twitched before he began eyeing Sirius' attire. It was actually quite astounding how well the jacket suit him, fitting so effortlessly with his long hair and the wicked smirk he now wore, standing with his hands on his hips and watching Remus watching him. Remus felt an odd chill run up his spine.

'You know what I think?' said James, his eyes lighting up so that he looked like an overexcited child. 'I think you need something bigger than just the black stuff. What you need is one of those cycle things those muggles use as brooms, the black ones that make a lot of noise.'

'A motorbike,' said Remus without thinking.

'I know what those are!' said Peter, always glad to have something to contribute. 'My dad used to confiscate them when he worked with Muggle safety enforcement. I'm sure he'll still have a couple lying around at the firm, actually.

Sirius and James looked at one another, communicating wordlessly while Remus buried his face in his hands in a feeble attempt to shield himself against whatever form their next mischief would take.


End file.
